There’s More to Your Peers Than You May Assume

Walking down the West hallway, you may feel like everyone is judging you about what you wear, what you say, who your friends with, the way you walk, and your personality. Although sometimes it may feel like it, you are NOT alone. Most other students feel this way too! In fact, most people feel like they are getting judged, and think that this judgment is built off of unfair assumptions that are made about them.  

Many students feel like they express themselves differently at home than at school. This could be because of the pressure to “fit in”. “There’s definitely a divide, at home I feel like I can just do anything because my family’s probably not gonna judge me because they’ve known me for 12 years, they probably know I’m already pretty weird, unlike people at school,” reflected Scarlet McMullen, West seventh-grader.

“I definitely feel like people make assumptions about me, and I don’t think they’re fair,”  says West seventh-grader, Lessa Gharaibeh.

Assumptions, everyone makes them. Assumptions are a huge problem in school and are often the cause of drama or bullying. “There are more hidden things in people that other people don’t know,” said Victoria Tan, a seventh-grader at West, “For example, some people bullied into doing things they don’t want to do. They end up getting in trouble even though they would never do that at home.”

We can’t make assumptions about others. We are only seeing a small piece of who people are at school.